The Weirdest Airplane Imaginable

At first, I thought this was an aviation hoax.  I always took for granted that there was some kind of physics principle that required airplanes to have the right side and left side mirror images.  However, the German Luftwaffe had a reconnaissance plane that was radically asymmetrical.  This was the Blohm and Voss Bv. 141.  It must have to be the weirdest airplane ever designed, built, and actually flown!  Why the Germans decided to design this airplane, I have no idea.

But also, the three guys (pilot, observer, and gunner) that rode in the cockpit must have had a lot of daring.

They made about 20 of these planes; and they were described as 'operational.'  

Here is an old film of it flying:

700th post!

Men Wearing Hats

The glory days of hat-wearing are long past; the de rigeur inclusion of a chapeau as part of workaday dress while outside has bone the way of the stick shift and the bustle.  Only in a few sects are ladies expected to wear hats in church, while in years past women and girls were expected to wear wimples, then elaborate expressions of millinery, or even remarkably ugly beanies in the case of schoolgirls.

Then there was that badge of lowly status, the freshman beanie.  That got lost somewhere in the 1950's or 1960's amid the Precambrian ooze of college life along with males singing "Boola Boola."

No, sumptuary laws regarding headgear are passé.  A man wearing a fedora or a western hat is seen as making a definite statement of individuality, as men's hats are seen as optional now except in the case of military uniforms.  So what do many men of various ages do?  They wear those baseball hats, often in rakish angles!

However, there are the secret places where men still enjoy wearing exotic headgear.  When they're football fans, like this proud Viking:

Or actively coaching.  The rule here is that if you're a football coach, you can get away with wearing anything.

Or are a world-class Party Animal:

Or are traveling South of the Border, down Mexico way:

Or a politician:

Or are a sk8r:

I'm glad that hat-wearing has become optional rather than mandatory. 

The California Pear Flag

The internet hoax and urban legend debunking site, Snopes.com, had a neat little hoax of its own with regard to the origins of the flag of California:

http://snopes.com/lost/bearflag.asp

The story goes as follows:

Back in 1846, Capt. Jedediah Bartlett, leader of a band of rebels fighting against the Mexican authorities in California, supposedly drew up a flag for the future state.   On it he included a lone star and a pear, adopted to represent the emerging republic's horticulture.  He was also an amateur plant hybrid scientist, and developed the juicy Bartlett pear. His words on the design instructions were misread and the flag maker inserted a bear on the flag instead of a pear.  Whoops, his bad.  But when they got the Bear Flag, they liked it.

Since then, California had a bear on its state flag.

Can you bear with me on this?  The Museum of Hoaxes reports this as being a hoax.  And a careful reading of the Lost Legends category would establish that the Pear Flag was really made up.  

Apparently, I just didn't read it right the first time.  Darn it, I like the pear flag.  It's cute.

Really Bad Pick-up Lines

Guaranteed to be cheesy, and not to be used under any circumstances.  Unless you're just going through the motions.

Nationalizing Bikinis

Recently Salon on-line magazine had a provocative article in which the writer proposed nationalizing such corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook.  I have no idea if this was just to give Jeff Bezos an upset stomach, to make Republicans' heads explode, or simply to engage in a little bit of "look at me; I'm provocative" writing.  I don't know.  This isn't going to happen, any more than a President less than two years' away from the end of his second term is likely to be impeached. 

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/08/lets_nationalize_amazon_and_google_publicly_funded_technology_built_big_tech/

Oh well, politics is

". . . . a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

[With apologies to Bill Shakespeare.]

But suppose our sicko Federal government decided to nationalize the bikini industry?  Given their track record of successes with the VA, FEMA, GM, the IRS, and the Post Office, this would be another cock up to crow about!

Well, the first thing they would do is write national standards for swimsuits and set up government overseers of the swimsuit industry.

Next they would appoint some Bikini Top Administrator* from some dismal cold, Eastern M state to run the whole thing.  This could serve as an opportunity for political patronage.

Since they would have a lot of free time, the overseers would quickly standardize models and colors of bikinis.  For example they would phase out the string bikini and the micro bikini, arguing that its style origins are foreign; and that the minimalist fabric requirements is detrimental to the remaining part of the nationalized garment industry.  As far as color is concerned, basic black, light gray, and dark gray color schemes would be allowed as per government regulations.  But, even better, the simple purchase of a bikini would require that extensive forms be filled out so that the bureaucratic machinery could properly regulate things.

It goes without saying that wearing Daisy Dukes and a top was now illegal.  Jessica Simpson cried.

The sale of swimwear would be only in government stores and purchase subject to review by a screening committee.  These stores would be located only in metropolises in which bureaucrats would deign to dwell.

And an additional enforcement agency could become required.  Actually, this could provide an additional raison d' être for the Revenuers still dealing with moonshine, since moonshining is only practiced in backward places such as North Carolina and Tennessee.  These New Revenuers could patrol beaches along the reluctant Gulf Coast and Californian coasts where violations of the new regulations could likely occur.  Oh well, harassing girls is a magnitude less dangerous than breaking up some mountaineer's still.

Furthermore, revenuers who got into trouble could be assigned beaches in Alaska or Maine.

Obviously, older swimsuits would still be permitted provided they were obviously dated or the wearer could produce a bill of sale for said swimwear.  Of course, these fake or backdated bills of sale could be provided by bikini bootleggers.  And snowbird visitors to the United States could help underwrite their time off in Florida sunshine by bring a few extra suits along for sale!  

And adventuresome entrepreneurs would smuggle bikinis across our Canadian and Mexican borders, much like there was a smuggling market for toilets that used sufficient water to adequately flush wastes.  Americans will go to great lengths to be flushed with success.

A complication of regulation came from the lively Caribbean cruising industry.  Suddenly another reason to go to Aruba or Saint Martin is to purchase bikinis to sneak back into the U.S.  In response to this, more customs agents were required to screen the disembarkation of passengers, and the searching of suitcases made this process more complicated.

However, one bright form of resistance came from American striptease artists.  They would wear on stage the brightest and most outrageously patterns of bikinis for the edification of Americans!  Strangely enough, government regulators either failed to take this form of resistance into account, or did not want their agents to enter those dens of iniquity.

They had more success when they prescribed weight and waistline standards for speedo wearers later on.


*Instead of being referred to as the Bikini Czar, she or he could be referred to as the Big ****.

Visiting Canadian or wearer of contraband swimsuit

It Takes a Village, Whether You Want It or Not

This is not a bash of Hillary Clinton, or her book (which I never read), but simply a commentary about the reality that new parents seem to face. 

Obviously, whether desired or not, some mothers, mothers-in-law, and complete strangers may dispense advice like Pez dispensers to the new parents.  But this was probably the case even in Paleolithic times.  And there are siblings, themselves in some stage or parenthood themselves or not.  And busybody neighbors.

But there are the infancy and childhood cause advocates, who seem to have an opinion on just about any topic there is.  Breast feeding it is hot button one.  While there are some advantages in doing so, it might not be possible for everyone.  But there are some who take breast-feeding up beyond the next level: until the child is four or five or so.  (Hopefully, this is long over before he starts dating, or it may some awkward moments with his girlfriends!)

And there are those who admonish the parents on how to dress their children.*   Not just regarding modesty or comfort, but even color.  There are some feminists that argue against allowing little girls to wear pink or lavender (Hello Kitty colors?), even if that might be the child's preferences.  Seriously, most preschool girls don't want to dress in colors that look like they're from the Duck Dynasty.

Some parental advocates argue for attachment parenting, including baby-carrying, co-sleeping, breast feeding until nearly kindergarten age, and so forth.  This is despite the fact that there is zero evidence to demonstrate that child-mother attachment requires going to such lengths.

How much supervision should children get?  There are some that see having a child unscheduled in an activity at any time to be undesirable: each day for the child is scheduled; and those who call for free-range children.  In effect, like kids were in the 1950's, as folklore has it.  Children do need some unstructured time.  They don't have to have totally structured days.

In the history of child-rearing advice, there were different viewpoints: the rigid-scheduling proponents such as the rational, limited emotional expression approach such as John B. Watson advocated, the "Tender Loving Care" school, and the advocates of attachment theory, including some who went beyond the scope of known data. 

And how should a child act?  Should budding left-handedness be thwarted?  What about gender less common behavior or interests?  What about cussing?**  And -- major issue -- what about excessive activity?  Presently, the frequently-chosen strategy is pharmacological: methylphenidate HCl, also known as Ritalin.  Unfortunately, there's no really objective assessment of hyperactivity.  It often devolves into the little boy (usually) pissing his teacher or mommy off.

Not surprisingly, what kind of television fare is allowed the child is a matter of extra-familial opinion.  At what age may the youngster or tween watch "adult fare"?  Is it so awful is a parent allows her daughter to watch such classics as Animal House?

Anyway, there's a lot of people willing to get into the act.  But especially those who are quite willing to assert that children are going to the dogs nowadays!  If you look hard enough, you can dredge up some support for your presupposition.

*My Mama allowed me to wear a Hello Kitty playsuit and a fake tiara when I was aged three or four years.   Still, she recounted being criticized for doing that.

**The F-word and the S-word were forbidden; but it was okay to say that school sucks with my family.  I had to go anyway.

Dividing California

Apparently Californians, having nothing else compelling on their ballots, will vote in 2016 on whether or not to peaceably divide their state into six different states:  Jefferson (red), North California (olive), Silicon Valley (green), Central California (light blue), West California (dark blue), and South California (purple).  This initiative, pushed by billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, supposedly has the required numbers of signatures of unhappy residents of the Golden State.

Will this pass?  But, also, would it pass in any of the areas of the proposed breakaway states.  My guess (from my vantage in NC) is that it has the greatest likelihood of passing in Jefferson (the red area) and slim to none in West California.

But suppose it does pass.  It would still need the approval of Congress.  Even the Lord's Prayer could not get passed in that "deliberative" body.  It is true that, one state, Texas, is Constitutionally allowed to divide into five smaller units if they see fit.  Given that the Republicans and the Democrats are strongly in competition for control of the Senate, there might be considerable reluctance to add additional states if they're likely to turn into opposition votes.


And would some of the less populous new states be economically viable?  Central California in particular?

What is troublesome is the lack of imagination in the names of the proposed states.  The proposal seems to follow the pattern found in the Carolinas, the Dakotas, and West Virginia: dividing the larger unit into smaller units by just affixing "North" or some other directional tag.  And, frankly, Silicon Valley smacks of the media and the Chamber of Commerce.

Whoops!  I am endangering two sacred cows of American society.  My bad!

Anyway, what do you all think of this idea?  You don't have to be a Californian to have an opinion.